Tuesday, 22 October 2013

A consideration for those whose children who do not even begin school

There has been some debate on one of the internet lists lately about, among other things, muscle tone. A parent whose child did not start school remarks, quite correctly, that had her son been at school, a particular type of muscle disorder might have been picked up far sooner. On a personal level, I will admit that my daughter has reached the age of twenty and has never in the whole course of her life, had a hearing test. This was of course somewhat remiss of me; it would have been easy enough to arrange.We sometimes forget that children at school routinely receive oversight, which is likely to bring to light abnormalities and matters of concern. These may range from the relatively trivial, such as a slight hearing loss in certain frequencies or a tendency to be a little overweight, to the more serious; a tentative diagnosis of autistic spectrum disorder, for example. This constant scrutiny of children by professionals who have been trained to pick up on anything from poor eyesight to an inability to play appropriately with other children can be very helpful. Of course, it isn’t perfect; many problems get overlooked. But as a rough and ready screening process, it is invaluable.Parents are the often not the best people to spot problems in their children. Nobody likes being told that their child is different; still less that there might be something ‘wrong’ with the child. This is where teachers and the health workers who carry out things like the School Entry Health Check are very useful. They are more objective than we are and better able to make an objective judgement about things like the acquisition of expressive language, the speed with which a child grasps the concept of sequencing and the level of social skills possessed by one of the pupils.Children, like my own daughter, who never start school miss out on all this. There is no doubt that some home educated children who have various syndromes are delayed in getting help as a consequence. How many of us recognise the signs and symptoms of hypotonia, to give one instance? I’m not sure that anything could, or indeed should, be done about this. It is just something that one sees home educating parents mention from time to time and is worth bearing in mind if you have a child who has never been to school.

6 comments:

Worn out Webb says " This constant scrutiny of children by professionals who have been trained to pick up on anything from poor eyesight to an inability to play appropriately with other children can be very helpful.

That sounds like a jail with the so called professionals looking for abuse and then finding it.constant scrutiny of children is just not healthy.

I partially agree with this and I might have totally agreed if the school nurse at my daughter's school hadn't missed a lazy eye so severe that she only had 3% vision (exactly as health visitor did even though I'd raised concerns with both of them,) not noticed abnormal hearing, and flatly denied that she could have autism because she 'had friends'.

Faced with that, I wouldn't have bet on her picking up hypotonia either!

One of the problems for parents of young children who are concerned that their development isn't what they were expecting is getting anyone to listen to their concerns. Despite years of research showing early intervention is the key to autism, many areas of this country won't begin to diagnose till a child is 7 or 8 and parents are routinely told 'they'll grow out of it' and categorised as over anxious at best and Munchausens by proxy at worst.

My advice, learned the hard way, would be to trust your instincts and visit the out of hours doctor if necessary to get a look at the child without notes that can be full of preconceptions. Oh, and being unfailingly good tempered and a box of sweeties for the receptionists at Christmas never hurts either!

'the school nurse at my daughter's school hadn't missed a lazy eye so severe that she only had 3% vision (exactly as health visitor did even though I'd raised concerns with both of them,) not noticed abnormal hearing, and flatly denied that she could have autism because she 'had friends'.'

No human institution, with the possible exception of the Papacy, at least on doctrinal matters, is infallible. That is why I described schools as being a, 'rough and ready screening process'; meaning to convey by that, that this system was prone to error. Of course, parents too are liable to make mistakes. The more people involved in the process, the less likely things are to be overlooked. What I was suggesting was not that parents abrogate their responsibility to watch over their children's health, but that this is more effective when combined with teachers and health-care professionals. The more people looking out for problems, the more likely they are to be spotted. Teachers, doctors and parents all make mistakes, but with three or four parties in the game, these mistakes tend to cancel each other out.

There is no doubt that many difficulties that children have are missed out or dismissed by both schools and health professions, but just because the school system isn't perfect doesn't mean to say that we can't strive for a better situation with home education.

Simon is right, the more people looking out for problems the more likely they will be spotted. It is important that home educators share information and look out for each other. So when a new home educator expresses concern that a child isn't writing very well, just telling them to not worry, they will learn when they want to, might not be the most helpful thing to do. Suggesting that they look more deeply at why the child is having difficulties learning to write might be a better more productive way to go, making up for the lack of professional oversight missing from some children's lives.

Exactly. Becoming part of a supportive community of experienced parents is usually better than hit and miss professional contact. We (HE community) are able to help people more effectively, very often.